Lesbian deaf couple plot to kill 82 year-old

HUSTONVILLE — Lois “Minnie” Goode was not home on the afternoon of July 3 when two deaf women from Ohio, armed with butcher knives, were discovered inside her residence on Danville Pike. Had she been, police believe the 82-year-old Goode would have been the victim of a crime almost too horrific to contemplate.

Lincoln County Sheriff Curt Folger said he has solid, high-tech evidence that Autumn Drass of Columbus and Taquisha Horton of Cleveland intended to stab Goode to death that day — at the bidding of Jessica Callahan of Danville — to settle a score in a lesbian lover’s quarrel.

“This is a big case, one of the most twisted I’ve ever seen,” Folger said Friday.

Drass, 23, and Horton, 27, are being held in the Lincoln County Detention Center on charges of first-degree burglary and attempted assault on Hustonville Police Chief Fred McCoy. Callahan, 27, of 232 Harding St. in Danville — who also is deaf — is being held in the Boyle County Detention Center on complicity to commit burglary and other unrelated charges.

Folger said he will present evidence to a Lincoln County grand jury on Aug. 23 seeking indictments against the three women for conspiracy to commit murder.

According to the sheriff, McCoy was dispatched to Goode’s home just up the street from Hustonville Elementary School after a neighbor reported seeing four people go to the rear of the house and then two of them return to a car and leave. When McCoy arrived, he encountered Drass at the back door with a knife raised in her hand. McCoy drew his weapon and, after Drass retreated into the house, called for backup, Folger said.

When Folger and deputies Danny Gilliam and Bill Hester arrived on scene, McCoy had Drass and Horton in handcuffs. During their investigation, the officers recovered another butcher knife and another especially damning bit of evidence — Drass’s cell phone.

“The deaf can communicate very well with text messages,” Folger said. “I got a search warrant for the phone and it revealed what I was beginning to suspect.”

Folger declined to elaborate on the specific contents of the phone, but said he recovered evidence in texts and photographs that show the plan was to murder Goode that day. One of the messages, sent after Drass was in custody, was a desperate plea to delete the previous incriminating phone activity, he said.

Folger said he gained further corroboration of the murder plan after interviewing Kerry Zamara, also of Columbus. Zamara was at Goode’s home that day, but left with Callahan before police arrived. She was initially charged with complicity in the burglary and jailed, but the charge was later dismissed, court records show. Folger said he released Zamara on the condition she would cooperate in the investigation and testify against the others or risk being indicted herself.READ MORE